“When she opened her eyes they were confronted by a musical box against the opposite wall - one of those early Bavarian toys where mechanical figures perform to the tune.'How odd,' she thought. The little stage showed a group of fiddlers, two couples in costumes like those of the ball she had just quitted, and in a doorway at the side, a gypsy or beggar man.Very faintly the distant waltz came to her ears, but no footsteps ringing in the abandoned halls.With her hand pressed to her unsteady heart, acting under a sudden compulsion, she pushed down the lever. Delicate plucked music started up; the fiddlers sawed with their clumsy arms in time to an ethereal waltz. The couples moved jerkily out and each raised an arm to clasp its partner. To various clicks and rumbles from under the floor they began to revolve with each other and to orbit round the room. Their movements were sinister because of being both reluctant and predestined. Here they were and this is was what they must do. ("Many Coloured Glass")”

“The music touched her, haunted her, because it was so beautiful and because she had never waltzed to it in her true love's arms. And never would.”

“Leila was sure ifhe partner didn't come and she had to listen to that marvellous music and to watch the others sliding, gliding over the golden floor, she would die at least, or faint, or lift her arms and fly out of one of those dark windows that showed the stars.”

“Let's not talk,” she said again, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him.His lips collided with hers; his mouth opened into hers. He pushed her down upon the sofa and began unbuttoning her blouse; she opened the buttons of his shirt and felt her lips press against the smooth expanses of his chest.They did not stop; they could not stop. Their bodies were tangled into each other – their limbs at angles across the surface of the couch. They had both by now stripped to their underwear, and Stuart's arms were tight upon her back.“We have to stop,” he whispered, and she gave a little moan in reply.”

“Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks"All those men were there inside, when she came in totally naked. They had been drinking: they began to spit. Newly come from the river, she knew nothing. She was a mermaid who had lost her way. The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh. Obscenities drowned her golden breasts. Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears. Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes. They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs, and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor. She did not speak because she had no speech. Her eyes were the colour of distant love, her twin arms were made of white topaz. Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light, and suddenly she went out by that door. Entering the river she was cleaned, shining like a white stone in the rain, and without looking back she swam again swam towards emptiness, swam towards death.”

“She had two broken ribs, a broken left arm, and a broken nose; splinters from the glasses and beer bottles had gashed her back and arms. When the men had finished, they had lifted one of the boards and thrown her under the stage... They were playing a polka as the policemen pulled the girl out of the muck.”